A Sane Revolution [Part 4]

The open air was smoggy and had an acrid, chemical tang. My dry throat felt scratchy and I coughed to try to clear it.

No-one took any notice of me. I scanned the groups of soldiers, looking for some indication of a commanding officer. They all seemed very young and undisciplined. But the casual way they toted their weapons and strutted round like street corner thugs made them appear all the more menacing.

I spotted an older man crossing the courtyard. He was tall and grey-haired and walked with a military bearing. A folder tucked under his arm leant him an air of authority.

He noticed me in turn and headed towards me purposefully. Gestured at a knot of youths, spoke to them briefly in passing, then pointed me out. Two boy-soldiers fell into stride and flanked him either side. Two more broke into a run and headed my way.

There was no point in fleeing. I had nowhere to go. Fear gripped the pit of my stomach, like a tardy warning of diarrhoea. I wanted to run, but my legs would do no more than tremble.

The soldiers halted too close for comfort. Invaded my personal space. Jostled me and shouted in my face.

One of them was the greasy guy from yesterday. He smelled no better. Grabbed me by the shoulder and pushed me back towards the building. But I was unwilling to go. I didn't like the idea of being somewhere out of sight, in his company.

I wasn't given a choice. An elbow jabbed below my ribs took my breath away. As I gasped and doubled over, I was hoisted by my coat collar and hustled through the doorway.

They manhandled me into a large, airy room. An opulent space, which had probably been a boardroom or executive meeting room. There was a thick pile carpet on the floor, scarlet as a pool of blood.

Looking lost and tiny in the middle of the room, there was a cheap table with a white melamine top and thin metal legs, plus two moulded plastic chairs.

The soldiers stood either side of me and pressed down on my shoulders, so that I sat on one of the chairs and was held in place.

The older man strode into the room and sat opposite me. Placed the folder on the table and fiddled with it until the sides were perfectly aligned with he table's edges.

His fastidious nature was almost reflected by his uniform, which was clean and well-pressed compared to that of his companions. But it was ill-fitting. The buttons on his tunic strained to contain a stomach that overhang the waistband of his trousers. There were the same threadbare patches where badges of rank had been removed. Plus a poorly mended hole in the breast pocket, surrounded by a shiny area where a stain had not been completely removed.

He ran a hand over his face, as if to wake himself up. A rasp of beard on his blue chin.

At last, he looked at me. Eyes as brown as mahogany, as heavy wooden doors firmly closed.

“I demand to see the British Consul,” I said, trying to sound assertive. But my dry throat rendered it as a croaky whisper.

“That is not possible,” he replied in English, without a trace of accent. Apart from a slight Home Counties burr, perhaps.

“Why not? I know my rights.”

“You cannot see what does not exist,” he stated, in the tone of someone patronising a person with delusions.

“What do you mean, 'doesn't exist'?”

“There is no Consulate. There is no Britain,” he explained in a level voice, as if it were self evident.

“No Britain?” I thought about the burning sky to the West. “Have you crazy bastards started World War Three?”

He assumed a pained expression. “There is no need to be melodramatic. You must understand: there is only one Country. And you are in it. And it is the World.”

“That's fucking ridiculous.”

“Not at all. You are an artist. You must be familiar with the modernista viewpoint that the representation of a thing is not the thing itself.” He ran his finger across the folder, tracing an imaginary line. “Cartographers may create borders on a page, but you will not see them etched on the landscape. They are no more than a children's game: a scuffed line made in the dirt by the heel of a shoe, across which you dare someone to step.”

I couldn't believe he was debating philosophy with me. I was too hungry, too cold, too scared for this shit.

“What about my hands?” I demanded, thrusting them towards his face. “Look what your thugs have done.”

As he flinched, one of the solders pinched the nerve at the base of my neck. It wasn't the Vulcan death grip, but it made me wince and drop my hands onto the table.

“Ow! Call off your goons,” I pleaded, squirming in my chair and failing to break the hold that was sending a jolt of pain along my jawline to my ear.

The older man raised an eyebrow and the soldier relaxed his grip, then patted me on the cheek as if to mockingly say: good boy, behave.

“I have the same authority here as you,” he declared, in apparent contradiction to what had just happened. “It extends no further than the range of my voice and only to those who choose to take notice of me.”

“What kind of barmy army are you running?”

He shook his head and tutted, like a disappointed maiden aunt.”There is so much about which you profess to be ignorant. For an educated man, you have little understanding of the World as it is.”

“So enlighten me,” I challenged him.

He opened the folder and reached inside. “There is no Army. Not as such. Though we are all soldiers now, All equally responsible for the defence of freedom.”

“Free...?” My voice was an indignant squeak that sputtered into silence.

He ignored my outburst and withdrew the contents of the folder methodically, one by one, making a neat pile: my notebook, followed by loose pages, smudged and creased and marked by boot-prints; my passport; pieces of my pen; my mobile phone, which I hadn't even realised I had lost; my correspondence from the University; and finally, with some display of ostentation, he placed a hundred dollar bill on top and smoothed it flat.

“Hey! What are you doing with my...?”

All I seemed to be able to utter were stupid questions. He raised a hand to silence me.

“These are quite obviously not yours, since I possess them. But none of these things are of any value, so you may have them if you wish.”

He extracted my itinerary from the pile.

“I see you are scheduled to deliver a lecture at the Universtadt. I can save you a journey. The event is cancelled. The institution itself is cancelled. All education has been devolved from such elitist and exclusive gatherings. Everyone is a teacher and everyone a student. If you plan to hold your talk, then you may do so here. All places are now valid seats of learning.”

I almost laughed. Had I not been in such pain and misery and held under duress, I would have snorted in derision and stormed off.

“What bollocks is that? How can I lecture these boys when we don't even speak the same language?”

He slammed his hand on the table in a sudden show of irritation.

“You must pay attention to what is happening around you.” His tone was low and urgent, his gaze fixed and intent. I realised he was also afraid, as if one careless word could bring down disaster on both our heads. “There is only one language. So far as the men here are concerned, you speak an obscure West Country dialect in which I share some fluency.”

At that point, the two other soldiers entered the room. One stood sentinel in the doorway, cradling an AK47. With his slightly too large beret and tightly belted trenchcoat, he looked like a bizarre mix of Che Guevara with Frank Spencer.

The second placed a suitcase by the side of the table. It was mine, but I stopped myself from claiming it. Though I eyed it possessively, I was beginning to learn better than to voice my knee-jerk reaction.

The old soldier also studiously ignored their arrival and continued to explain the nature of my predicament.

“When they spotted you making notes and sketches, they assumed you were some sort of spy or dissident. The concept is a difficult one to articulate, so they are prepared to accept my assurance that you are a part of the new romanstroika movement.”

“Truth is beauty?” His explanation only increased my puzzlement. “Are you saying your revolution has somehow grown out of a revivalist art theory?”

“There you go again.” He was obviously exasperated with me. “ There is no revolution. There cannot be, because there is no government other than what we personally impose. We cannot rebel against ourselves.”

He appeared to reach a decision, or a point of limitation and stood up, pulling the front of his tunic down to cover his stomach.

“I have no more time,” he declared. There are many others who need to be re-orientated, in greater need than you. Let me just advise you that a better translation would be: there is no beauty but truth.”

“Hey, wait. You're leaving me here as a captive of these psychos?”

He pointed to the broken hinges on the door frame.

“You are not a prisoner,” he declared. “There are literally no doors. You have the same freedom as everyone else.”

He walked towards the exit. The young soldiers did not accompany him. The greasy one in particular kept a strong hold of my shoulder and stared insolently into my face.

“Of course,” he added. “They are also free to shoot you if you decide to leave.”

*